Donnie (they/she) is a leader who believes in the power of community. Throughout their career, they have dedicated themselves to lifting others up through collaboration and fostering strong partnerships. With front-line experience working in alternative housing solutions and mental health, Donnie has a deep-rooted commitment to serving and protecting women, children and gender-diverse individuals. 

Sarah is a mission-driven leader known for developing collaborative teams focused on operational excellence through systems development, risk analysis and innovative problem-solving. She is accomplished in and recognized for her ability to lead through crises, establish strong partnerships centred on a collective vision, and seeing an idea through the stages of conception, planning, development, and actualization.

Born in India, Mamta came to Canada at 10 years of age and has lived in the Lower Mainland ever since.  She brings a wealth of experience in designing and scaling People & Culture programs and services.  Before joining Atira, Mamta led an HR team that served 2500 front line employees, in 3 provinces, that belonged to 7 different unions with 18 collective agreements. This enriching experience enables Mamta to foster a positive and cooperative labour relations environment amongst union, management, and employee groups to create win-win solutions.

Hajar grew up on the Gaza Strip (part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory) where she earned a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza. She spent three years as a project manager before moving into the world of international aid where she spent nine years doing project design, monitoring and evaluation in countries as diverse as Palestine, Jordan and Somaliland.

Jose is from Queretaro, Mexico and came to Canada in August of 2001. He attended Simon Fraser University with interest in learning disabilities and equity gaps for those with diverse learning abilities. He also studied and focused his attention on suicidality and crisis prevention. During his time at university he worked for the Center for Accessible Learning’s note-taking program where he would make sure that students had equality of access to lecture materials by closing the information gap caused by large classroom sizes and poor acoustical or visual conditions.

Deepak holds a CPA, CGA designation and has been working in the non-profit sector for more than 20 years. He spent the last 18 years at another non-profit organization in the Downtown East Side before joining Atira.